How to Lava Burst: Elemental guide (Updated for 4.2)

Post by Meldoron

Elemental is the shaman's caster dps talent tree. What it lacks in mobility, it makes up in high damage while stationary. Like enhancement, elemental can off heal fairly easily if needed.

We use mail gear and wield a 1h and shield when we can, but a staff works just as well if the stats are better. is our enchant of choice because it gives us spell power.

Talents

Here is our base spec as elemental 29/7/0. There are two points in only to fill in the tree. We have five floating points that can either be used for utility or survivability. Below is a personal priority list of the optional talents.

Optional Talents:

Earthquake: Although it is our ability at the bottom of the tree, it isn't mandatory because it is only for aoe. It is nice utility to have when takes down large groups of enemies but only just.

: Good if range is an issue for either your raid buffs or your searing totem.

: A lower cooldown for your wind shear is purely utility. In most cases you won't need a reduced cooldown to any of your shocks, but it is handy.

: If there is any aoe, then this helps to take strain off the healers.

: The reduction to damage is nice, but you can't guarantee you will be casting when you take damage.

: Only good if you tend to have mana problems, so this talents works well at lower gear levels, but begins to lose its value as gear gets better.

: This takes some strain off your healers, but you should be getting enough heals anyway.

Overall, I recommend taking Earthquake, and . It is nice to have some freedom and not have to worry about your totems a lot.

Glyphs

Prime

Charred Glyph: Allows us to move a little more freely while casting. Only use if the fight requires more movement than Spiritwalker's Grace can handle. (Recommended)

With 4.2, our mobile dps is very similar to our single target rotation. Always stop to cast Lava Burst when you can. If stopping is not an option, use Spiritwalker's Grace to accommodate. Unleash Elements is no longer in any of our rotation.

The hit cap for our spells is 17% or 1742 hit rating (1640 hit rating for Draenei). We get hit from spirit thanks to , so we share gear with our Resto counterparts. Haste and Mastery are very similar in increasing our dps. Haste tends to increase our dps faster by a small margin, so most elemental shaman stack haste over mastery. You can stack either one for good dps. Crit is our worst stat and should be reforged from when possible.

Gemming

Intellect is our main stat, but being hit capped is also our priority. Socket bonuses sometimes isn't worth going for if it is merely +10 of a secondary stat. For yellow, it depends on what you decided to stack.

Example on when to put a red gem in a blue socket: Say you have a socket bonus of +20 crit. Placing a Purified Demonseye in the socket would give you 20 intellect, 20 spirit, and 20 crit. However, putting a Brilliant Inferno Ruby into the socket would get you an extra 20 intellect at the cost of 20 spirit and 20 crit, which is a dps increase unless you are 20 hit from hit cap.

Post by Meldoron

Reserved. I used soccergenius' enhance post as a backbone. =)

I'm going to bed...

Post by nikosgiginth

vey very nice one but on spell priority you have forget they [] and now it is saying spell=77756 and not Lava Surge XDand why you have they Brilliant Inferno Ruby on red and blue geam if it can be put onhy on red slots?

Post by Gnub

Few comments. First on Prime Glyphs:

Charred Glyph: It indirectly increases our dps by giving us more GCD's(Global Cooldowns) for casting. (Recommended)

It also makes more room for Earth Shock, and gives more freedom. One of the reasons I also always pick 2/2 . It's always annoying when cooldowns and procs clash.

Glyph of Fire Elemental Totem: Great for fights that last longer than 5 minutes. In 4.2, this may surpass Glyph of Flame Shock, but not until then. (Optional)

4.2 (Tier 12 2-set) doesn't directly make our Fire Elemental any better, only seems to up the time it is potentially up. At the least, I would add in that reference. I can't see why this would potentially change the usefulness of this one, and especially not surpass that of Flame Shock.

Major Glyphs:Not really a lot of comments, just a few opinions that might give some other viewpoints.

Would certainly give this Optional, as I have never even used Ghost Wolf in raid-encounters - except when running back after a wipe. You won't use it in combat either, as you'd try to fire off Shocks (or use Spiritwalker's Grace) as much as possible.

I actually found this quite useful, as it essentially increases our AoE radius by 50% (10 -> 15 yards). While Earthquake is more limited, this can essentially make your AoE cover a huge area - in case the trash is spread out over a large area. Not likely to happen, but still nice. Keep it Optional ofcourse. :)

Also, you forgot about the useful Charred Glyph. Very nice for keeping the CC sharp.

There's a few other nice (and cheaper) additions that could be made. Potentially, it could be made into a table with a "Best" and "others"-columns. Added a few cheaper options above in bold, and an addition to the beltbuckle.

Besides that, it's turning out nice. Some in-depth information would probably be great - and remember to cite your resources ;)

Post by Meldoron

Thank you for your information, Gnub. I put this together in 2 hours, so I guess I missed a few things. Is it weird that the only source I would have is the Wowhead database? This is all just from the 2 weeks I played elemental just to play it. I had originally misread the T12 set-2 bonus and I altered my post accordingly.

vey very nice one but on spell priority you have forget they [] and now it is saying spell=77756 and not Lava Surge XDand why you have they Brilliant Inferno Ruby on red and blue geam if it can be put onhy on red slots?

Good catch on the Lava Surge. I'll need to clarify why I did it in my post, but it's mainly for optimizing purposes. You wouldn't give up 20 int for 20 hit and a crappy socket bonus like 20 crit.

Post by Nirobi

Hey, I am an avid user of Power Auras, but I can't for the life of me figure out how to make it tell me when searing totem has ran out ((and by extension the fire elemental but its pretty hard to not notice his fat butt running around.)) Any chance of you guys helping me out here?

Edit: forgot my question how embarrassing =$

Post by greywolfsage

Brilliant Inferno Ruby on red and blue geam if it can be put onhy on red slots?

I hope you were meaning that Inferno Rubies only activate Red Sockets. Because you can put any color gem anywhere.

Post by Nirobi

Well metas only fit in meta sockets but thats pretty obvious information

Post by greywolfsage

Well metas only fit in meta sockets but thats pretty obvious information

And cogwheels in cogwheels, which is why i chose "any color gem" wording. ^^

And I still don't see how Unleash Elements is so useless. I regularly get a decent 10k hit out of it and I normally try to burn it before a Flame Shock, extra 20% damage. Though I'll be honest I haven't taken the time to test it. I mostly just heal, and swap out Jar for Witching Hourglass for faceroll 11k in heroics. lol

Post by soccergenius

Well metas only fit in meta sockets but thats pretty obvious information

And cogwheels in cogwheels, which is why i chose "any color gem" wording. ^^

And I still don't see how Unleash Elements is so useless. I regularly get a decent 10k hit out of it and I normally try to burn it before a Flame Shock, extra 20% damage. Though I'll be honest I haven't taken the time to test it. I mostly just heal, and swap out Jar for Witching Hourglass for faceroll 11k in heroics. lol

The reason why UE is weak when you're not moving is because that GCD could be spent casting a LB. If that LB crits or procs Elemental Overload, it does more dmg than the UE + charged LvB (vs non-charged) dmg plus the chance to proc Rolling Thunder for more Fulminates.

Post by Gnub

Thank you for your information, Gnub. I put this together in 2 hours, so I guess I missed a few things. Is it weird that the only source I would have is the Wowhead database? This is all just from the 2 weeks I played elemental just to play it. I had originally misread the T12 set-2 bonus and I altered my post accordingly.

You can add in the following to get it to look a bit different, in the first line:

Post by Meldoron

Yeah, I was planning on making it a fancy table when I get the chance. It'll probably happen later tonight.

Post by Meldoron

Table for enchants is done.

Post by soccergenius

Table for enchants is done.

I'm totally ninja'ing that. I'm not a pro at BBC code so I wasn't sure on it =P

Post by Meldoron

Table for enchants is done.

I'm totally ninja'ing that. I'm not a pro at BBC code so I wasn't sure on it =P

I stole it from the "Assessing all the options" thread in the warlock forums =D

Post by nikosgiginth

Table for enchants is done.

I'm totally ninja'ing that. I'm not a pro at BBC code so I wasn't sure on it =P

I stole it from the "Assessing all the options" thread in the warlock forums =D

lol!ninja! XDcan i ninja it from you for my guilde too?but i think i will need a littel help whit the enh list XD

Post by Meldoron

Go for it. I cleaned it up from where I stole it from, so it's pretty easy to plug in new stuff.

I can't wait until I can use my premium for a year from winning first prize in the last wowhead contest. My captcha had subscripts and superscripts just to F with me...

Post by Gnub

Table for enchants is done.

I'm totally ninja'ing that. I'm not a pro at BBC code so I wasn't sure on it =PHehe, the code isn't that bad, once you notice the logic in it. It's almost identical to HTML-tags. Regardless, it looks neat now.

Post by soccergenius

I don't raid with an elemental shaman but I'd like some thoughts about this:

So, after last nights Heroic Maloriak attempts, I have come to the following conclusions about Elemental AoE damage.

1. Earthquake is virtually useless, and probably only be used for specific heroic encounters via a secondary spec2. Fire Nova is fairly useless too.3. Tab spamming Flame Shock to get more Fire Nova bursts out doesn't make much of a difference.

I compared tab FS with FN spam, single target + CL with FN spam, and my usual single target + CL rotation on the Dark Phase, and there was virtually no difference in damage output, making allowances for things that happened in each attempt (~2.8m for the first, with two dark and nearly going OOM plus aboms, ~1.5m with one dark and aboms, ~1.25m for one dark without aboms respectively).

In short, I'm going to continue not using FN, and I'm going to have a second ele spec for the odd occasions I actually need Earthquake (which is virtually never). If I use both, my AoE rotation will be 7 abilities with differing cooldowns (3, 4, two on a shared 6, 8, 10) vs a much more manageable 5 (3, two on a shared 6, 8). I'm not sure how complicated other caster AoE is, but surely it can't be as complex as this with such little gain over single target damage.

Elemental's AoE abilities when used together makes WotLK enhancement's attack priority look like a joke.

Post by Fulgorater

looks nicer inside of box? the shadings actually come out

nvm, its a browser issue

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